Huntsmen Part 2, Chapter 12

*copyrighted material*

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    The first-hand sensation of soft boot soles against the packed powder snow was certainly not a delightful affair, unstable and cold. His hunting partners had noticed right away. Yes, of course, it was a rarity, a novelty even for someone like him a ‘snow maggot’, they still called him that up here on the mountain. Yet the derogatory names spoke volumes about them rather than those being insulted. It was no trip under his terms after all, and he felt he hadn’t come into the world to love snow in all of its beauty, he had come to get rid of it. It was a job. Period. Calvin’s desire for justice and a free country made no difference up here while being hugged by the unloving arrival of the Norwegian northerlies. Finding out his wintertime mukluks were klutzy and ill-fitting had been a much unfavorable happenstance too. His concerns didn’t end there though. While Carol knew how to move around effectively to the boy’s lead-footed rhythm, the fox’s constant mating season whines and howls had turned every hard look right back at him from the very beginning.     

   The blubbery pinewoods were not just surrounded by the powdery snow mantles. Frost-flower bushes, Eurasian wolves, the songs of nightjars at twilight, reindeer, and mossy boulders so

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ancient that seemed to take peculiar forms conflicted and mismatched, but somehow compatible with its unshaven surroundings that gave them a clean and flawless look. The hunting party along with the escorting servicemen had tackled the hounding task with a fine-toothed comb. On horses, tracking with the dogs, and falcons circling up close from higher positions for a better picture. Guns clutched to their chests, moving by foot yet covering as much territory as possible. Meticulous. Clear-cut and repetitive to some extent. Striding for long distances, then shaking from the cold. A midday meal to keep the cycle alive. Oil lamps, manila hemp ropes, worsted masks, and goggles at night under the bleached stars.

    It was the twenty-eighth day of the search, with no traces of Dr. Mulhouse. None even while tracking the scent of her confinement garbs. The manhunt had already taken three lives during sleep. Different occasions. Same stone-hearted, bitter squall each night. Jesse’s final orders to his men before leaving town were to let Calvin deal with the corpses. Whether it was burying them beneath frost patches or setting them on fire with the help of gasoline. The punitive measures had seemed pertinent and entertaining to his hunting partners, but the kid knew very well that here in Mt. Mowaki’s domains, fake reliance would likely lead every single one of them to their deaths, or so a sweet hunch made him believe. Everyman’s suspicion, apathy, and ravenousness. Standing on thin ice, nature’s crippling game brought madness at times of adversity. Their weapons would acquire a new meaning soon enough. The infamous fugitive was still the center of attention to the servicemen, but as the days passed a conflict within the group was more and more evident. Quarrels surfaced between Jesse’s men and the huntsmen. The act of containing them would be insufficient, the waters were already piping hot. The manifestation of humanity’s urge for freedom itself.

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   But while Calvin chortled at the idea of more rising tensions, he was unaware that by the time he signed up to the hunt group Jesse Mcallister already knew about his legal status. And that by the last meetup at the town’s exit a plan to expect Wyatt at Nooktown was already in motion. 

    The Visitors themselves had come in contact with Jesse to provide the information with a critic’s eye. Even as Head Commander and Mayor of Nooktown, the Visitors hanged on ranks that much to Jesse’s dismay could acquire and revoke his bestowed governs upon the lands and his high-class privileges. Under their expectation and malevolent umbrage, the Head Commander had shut off Booze Bucket Bar, set it on fire, and made its owner Nelson Beatty disappear. All in a matter of hours as he had been instructed to with alarming detail. The Visitors had also commanded him to keep the kid away while Wyatt would have to deal with the excruciation. The ex-cabbie had been identified a few days later as the driver of one of their victims. It could sound nonsensical but under Roanoke’s laws of absolute domination, they’d created a decree called the Indignation Statute in which captured runaways were legally scrutinized to doom. Whatever to expose the ‘culprits’ to more charges while violently punished.

    However, under this decree read an outlandish passage that stated the following: ‘Men and women that fall into this category will ONLY be granted an equal trial on the condition that the accused previously filed his/her resignation at their workplace before the persecution.’

    A hunt for traitors had become an uncomplex thing for Roanoke’s Directorate of Intelligence without any sort of elaboration after establishing the said code. Soup duck, they’d called it. Everyone fell under the net, at least 84% of deserters. Ernest Dahlgren hoped to at least use the laws and that tiny benefit to their advantage but the Visitors could have stepped into the scene to change them as well, and that’s exactly what he had feared the most for the sake of the Renou people, the Elsner brothers, and his dedicated and diverse group of spies.

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   Roanoke, with its negligible size, had gone from Northwestern Europe’s little bully to an opportunist on the rise in just three decades. There had always been corruption in the country before that, but at least their people hadn’t yet been forced to live in abandoned spaces. There had once been wealth and there had once been a society. Even with all eyes set on the German Empire, the region knew Roanoke’s unending civil war was a territorial hazard. Most definitely, the government seemed unapproachable and worked with questionable logic. Roanoke’s conduct records were certainly not very pleasant.

    Rumors said there was fear among the resident nations, some spoke about the possession of atypical weapons. Exactly what these weapons were? Many deserters would mention Roanoke’s motivation for the creation of a vast quantity of powerfully built drug-based weaponry with unlimited endorsements regarding safety measurements, chemical components, or test subjects. Somehow, the country had survived for centuries with absolutely no diplomacy. At the cost of international vandalism and trickery. It was until 1895 that it became ungovernable when Senator Maximilian Chrome, face, and promoter of social justice advocacy for and by the mother country, was heartlessly murdered during a Parliament meeting to abolish the conception and perpetration of those acts to build strong relationships with the surrounding countries, who had initially supported the motion. 

   Calvin woke up the next morning clawing to his camping blanket, his fingers fixed, bloodless. Patches of reddish-blue on his wrists and even beneath his fur-lined parka coat. Lips faded, unwell. His body was a shivering mass. He turned his head, feeling Carol’s furry tail up the side of his nape. She had curled up over his torso during the night to provide him some heat. He sneered at that unknowingly of what he would face later. The boy massaged the crown of her head, and she stretched her coal-pigmented paws, pressing her chin over his chest. He closed his eyes for more than just a couple of minutes before crawling out of the thickly-skinned tent he’d been handed

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over by the military before their departure. Aside from the tents, every single party member had been granted additional warmth-holding garments and some dried snacks.

   The fox emerged with him and found the campfire dead, nonetheless sparkling under sandy, oyster ashes. Wet soil, longleaf pines, and acorns. The coast was clear as the sun began to roll up, the first morning in days without a whiteout, and the first man to rise from slumber. A successful escape wouldn’t have been possible before this day, Calvin and Carol could have died out alone in a blizzard if he’d tried. Desperation had not clouded his judgment so far. 

    Despite the pleasant sunlight kissing his features, he could already feel the isolated response from his insides upon every move. Debilitated, shaky, sluggish, and unsteady. The signs of hypothermia filtrating into his build just like those men he was forced to bury were unmistakable.

    Sunlight did not last for long. Just an hour later a horse rider from the military came along through thick mists, delivering a letter to officer Møller—leader of the military crew. Møller gazed down at the face of the envelope and gave Calvin a deadpan stare before calling him out and ordering him to read the letter aloud in his presence. The boy ripped open the top fold of the paper case that carried his name and began, “Dear Mr. Elsner . . . ” The kid stared at the officer with disquieting eyes before moving on, “The following notice has been sent to you with the purpose of reporting an issue . . .  ”

    Calvin spoke clearly, his eyes following the beeline of letters until he realized what was coming out of his mouth. In the coming paragraphs, the Roanoke Military expressed a short ‘condolences note’ over Nelson Beaty’s death and the arranged fire at the man’s establishment, Booze Bucket Bar. It was clarified it had all been started over broken rules and regulations, which included his legal status as a conspirator, and information provided by high authorities.

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   Fromage, oregano, and dried mushrooms, he could smell and taste them, cooking in Nelson’s kitchen somewhere in the back of his head. With guilt, he imagined the chef’s spectacular fondue, a recipe that had won him awards and a respectable name in the world of cookery. He always talked about Great Tiffany, the illustrious cruiser he had worked for at least twenty years in his youth back in 1899—Roanoke’s civil war had yet not surfaced, bubbling under the waters. Nelson had traveled to many places along the Mediterranean Sea. He had seen Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, Libya, Italy, Monaco, and France with his own eyes. All before returning to his roots and founding Booze Bucket Bar with delightful success. 

    He remained silent during breakfast with the huntsmen, the heat of a new campfire and broiled food brought some consolation to his quivering guts. But his gaze kept falling upon his furry partner with worry. Woodbone’s words found themselves running in Calvin’s head as he pictured the buried corpses. He’d seen the same symptoms unfold many times before back at Nooktown’s runways and knew that under these conditions and surroundings, just like his deceased party members, his death would be a matter of time.

    “I know you are handicapped in this game. You are just a kid and trust me, no one in that hunting party is going to tend to your needs or listen to you. You’ll be ignored, use that against them. Do you understand?”

    The kid had to put his frame of mind elsewhere when officer Møller ordered them to shape up for the next hunting round in twenty, noted in his minute book. The idea of venturing again up to the virgin forests of the mountain terrorized him indisputably in his conditions. He knew he couldn’t convey his weakness as of now, he would have to play his part until the state of affairs changed. He would endure, somehow.

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    Three hours later into the hounding, Calvin couldn’t help but lag behind the others. That morning Carol was even more persistent, pulling her owner from the leash as she tried following whatever odors she could catch up out of their range. Her howling again, was absurdly boisterous and maddening while the Dobermans had picked up a new scent trail along some footmarks. The boy was exasperated, yet tried reasoning with his fox letting her know her actions were far more than just embarrassing. The group followed a crooked path between mossy trees, frost-weeds, and oddly enough, river pebbles. That could only mean a waterway was nearby.

    The fox pulled arduously on her leather strap as she stared directly above and towards the high branches—pulling him in the opposite direction from where everyone was heading. He had to use all of his weight to drag her back.

    “Carol! There’s nothing up there!” She growled and tried to take off her collar, which brought the attention of the servicemen. 

   “Hey, you! Calm her down or I’ll shoot the little bitch!” One of them warned, showing the barrel of his gun. The fox’s gaze fixed upon the trees.

    “Knock it off!” Calvin pleaded.

    “Stupid bitch . . . ” The man took a shooting stance and pointed at the fox, who stood on her rear paws. Unaware or unconcerned, something else absorbed her attention. A reverberating noise then ripped through the thin air, a bullet. The soldier about to shoot Carol fell to the ground with an earth-packed thud. His skull opened with a perfect cut. What was next was the shrieks of the horses, followed by another gunshot. The hunting party was suddenly retaliating with their revolvers, pistols, and rifles, but doing so blindly with no clue of their target’s position. Bodies kept falling to the ground, nonetheless. Calvin had found refuge behind a stubby shrub, still holding the fox back. She barked. Barked again and set herself loose with a powerful yank.

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Sick or not, it was the ideal moment to bolt out and lose them in the forest. He crawled away from manslaughter, the shooting continued as men and horses succumbed. An injured soldier tugged at the boy’s boot and he had no other option but to rise to his feet and run.

    “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, YOU CRETINS?! SHOOT HIM!” Officer Møller yelled at his crew as he saw him sprinting deeper into the woodlot. A stocky, skin-headed man swung his ax toward him as he passed by. He barely dodged the blow, throwing himself to the ground. Soiled up, he whistled for Carol to attack. The man swung his ax down at him again, he dodged and the sharp edge got stuck in the muddy earth. The fox came into sight from behind the sweetbriers, biting the lumberjack’s shank. Ripping his trousers and exposing his flesh. The man tried kicking her out of the way but instead, she sank her teeth further into his flesh. Calvin scrambled to his feet and picked up the ax.

    “GET OUT OF THE WAY!” The hoarse voice of a woman coming from overhead urged him. He didn’t think twice when he realized the hounds had been let loose. He ran, jumped, and stumbled his way out of the huntsmen’s reach. The soft ground turned into mud puddles, loose roots, sprouts, and slippery rocks. He whistled again, this time to retrieve his partner from the war zone. 

    A gunshot hit a nearby tree. Now, he was panicking.  

    “COME BACK YOU PIECE OF SHIT!” The hunting dogs finally got sight of this smaller, new target. He skidded again, his young body failing him with sluggish moves. Heavy and weak. Nearly suffering a cardiac arrest when one of the dogs reached out for his parka sleeve. The beast brought him down with a savage tug, breathing its last breaths over the kid’s face. A bullet had pierced the animals’ cranium. Yet again, opening in half with disconcerting and perplexing precision.

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    He had no time to ponder, so a second Doberman arrived. He had to use the ax handle to block its enclosing jaws. It fought back, trying to tear him to shreds. A third one burst in but got ambushed by Carol. They rolled around on muck soil, gnawing at each other. 

    “Stop! STOP!” The word came out easily knowing she wasn’t going to take it for too long.

    Calvin struck the second dog with an elbow, followed by a kick to the ribcage and a punch to the side of the skull. The animal whimpered, stepped back, and broke away, searching for the assistance of its holder. The last remaining hound escaped from them with a few wounds on its snout and forepaws. Carol, however, had plenty of lacerations on her lower torso, and at the side of her collar.

    The kid dropped the ax and staggered to her side. She was lying down, wheezing and licking off the blood from her fur. He dropped on his bum beside her, gasping for air as well. He knew there was no time to wind down.

   “Come on, girl. Let’s go . . . ” The boy picked her up—Carol’s head against his shoulder, her eyes fixed at the woods they left behind—traversing with no real sense of direction, a waddly sprint. He observed the environment unsure of what was next on the to-do list. Carol’s training with the woodcutters had served him well. He just didn't know how unprepared he was, feeling like a bad lot. He’d completely forgotten to use Edna’s gun, still in his possession at least.

   His tent had been left at the campsite, but he’d been able to stuff everything he needed in his satchel. Could he have cut and run safely with Edna’s gun in hand? He thought about his next course of action with a taste of marl clay, hoarfrost, and filth in his mouth, all those stuck in the cavities between his teeth after being tackled and eating dirt.

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    He spat a couple of times before he could hear the sound of the nearby river. He staggered and lurched his back, he could no longer hold Carol’s weight or his. At the sight, she licked him with a bloodied tongue, howling once more. Had her behavior been a warning all along? Calvin decided to push his limits and follow the sound of the waterway. When he found it, he knelt by it and pressed snow chunks onto her wounds to later wash off the blood from her fur with a wet cotton towel. He had stepped into the bandaging job when he started to lose consciousness.

    He fell back from his knees to his butt again, his vision a fog as he felt drowsiness kicking in. He laid down hearing the cries of falcons. There were gunshots again and the sensation of being dragged into the frigid, sludgy grounded river.

END OF CHAPTER #12